Federal government and labour unions are brokering over when and how the minimum wage being discussed will be implemented. While the federal government is contending that there is no time limit for workers to expect the new minimum wage, Labour is insisting that there must be a time limit as workers cannot wait forever.
Both the Labour Minister Senator Chris Ngige and the NLC President Mr. Ayuba Wabba, spoke to Nigeria Journalists separately on the sideline of the ongoing 106th session of the International Labour Conference, ILC, holding in Geneva, Switzerland. Senator Ngige said that the 29-member tripartite National Minimum Wage Committee, would be inaugurated in the next two weeks.
The Minister said that it was impossible to put a time limit to the process because the issue of minimum wage involved a rigorous process and negotiation, pointing out that it also involved the employers, workers and the government who had, never the less, all agreed that there was the need to review minimum wage in Nigeria.
He said: “We cannot put a time limit, it is a negotiation. A negotiation that is on-going but we are sure that all of us have seen the need that there must be a review. Some have taken their positions. The workers have demanded for N56,000, the employers have said for now they cannot pay N56,000. But everything being said now is outside the orbit of the negotiations table. When the committee comes to force actual discussion will start and the committee will be in place in the next fortnight.”
Wabba on his part acknowledged the fears over when the new minimum wage would become a reality, saying: It is good for people to express their fears, but it’s also good for leaders to be up and doing. For us in Organised Labour, certainty, it is an issue that we think that is long overdue. We have gotten commitment from all levels, including the National Assembly that members are ready to make sure that this issue is addressed once and for all. You can even see that in the last one month, one action that has been taken, the leader of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajamila proposed a bill to the effect that the issue of the review of minimum wage should even be a provision of the law. Because you are aware that in 2011, what we had was a tripartite agreement that after five years, the minimum wage will be reviewed.
“But they have even gone one step further by saying that it should not only end up in the tripartite agreement, it should be a product of law. I think that all of them in the National Assembly, which we have interfaced with, are ready to do the needful, including if there is supplementary budget today, that they are ready to give it accelerated hearing. Therefore, those fears are real, but we are working assiduously from our perspective to ensure that those issues are addressed. It is an issue that you need to bring the governors, employers, government and Organised Labour. And you know businesses are for profits and anything that will take a dime out of their profits, they are ready to do everything possible to delay it. We are mindful of that.
“It is not the first time we are treading this path, you remember in 2010, it was also the same process. There was also this insinuations. But I think when the die is cast, all of us then know that certainly the workers are pushed to the wall, there is a limit to patient and understanding. Certainly, a hungry person, however you explain to him, there is no basis how he will understand. So, we Are looking at reality. Because it is very clear that N18,000 in the context of the current economic reality cannot take you for a week. I assure you that we on this side will play our role very importantly so that we take into consideration some of the issues that our members have brought to our attention. But I think the important thing is that the process must start and we must see it to the fact that this process must have a timeline where we can end it. We shouldn’t allow those workers to die first before the fruit of their Labour will manifest.”
